Workers lose as unions win

We feel some perverse sympathy for CFMEU boss John Setka's foul-mouthed reaction to the hypocrisy of the Australian Labor Party life membership awarded to Kevin Rudd. After all, union warlords like Mr Setka deposed the "dog" and "maggot" of a popularly elected Labor prime minister in 2010 because he refused to pay them due fealty. Like Bob Hawke in the 1980s, Mr Rudd had the gall to confront the lawless CFMEU. So the warlords installed Julia Gillard, who showed no hesitation in kissing the ring of the union bosses who run Labor's machinery of power and patronage. And now they will rely on another creature of the union movement, former Australian Workers' Union secretary Bill Shorten, to shore up the legal protections that sustain their labour supply monopolies in key industries, their control of Australia's centre-left political duopolist and their influence over the nation's biggest financial institutions. With Mr Shorten in charge, Mr Setka and his fellow union bosses are within sniffing distance of rolling back 30 years of workplace reform, including removing the enterprise bargaining system created by Paul Keating, also given Labor life membership this week.

Sadly, this is set to happen in part because the scars of the Howard government's Work Choices have frightened the Coalition off the task of turning Australia's Federation-era workplace system, based on institutionalised conflict between labour and capital, into something fit for helping Australian workers to compete in today's globalised digital economy. It held a royal commission into union corruption and restored the Australian Building and Construction Commission to keep the recidivist CFMEU on some sort of leash. The decision to reduce job-killing weekend penalty rates came from the Fair Work Commission. But in six years, the Coalition has not changed the agenda or the language of "industrial relations". There is no talk of how to encourage high-performance, high-productivity workplaces where everyone gets ahead. Labor is set to regain power backed by a union movement that will turn workplace regulation back to the mid-20th century. The bulk of Australian workers will be the losers.

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten during presentation of lifetime membership to Mr Rudd at the ALP Conference in Adelaide this week. Alex Ellinghausen